Mischling by Affinity Konar

Mischling opens at the doorsteps of Auschwitz as twin sisters first enter Josef Mengele’s infamous “Zoo,” where he affronted the human soul with a series of unforgivable experiments. Told from their dueling perspectives, this story isn’t a historical Holocaust narrative—instead, it is a literary, experiential kaleidoscope, using precocious young narrators to wrest meaning from that abyss. Horrible reality here gives way to poetic, lyrical prose which is affecting, powerful, and transcendent. —a.c.